1484 



some 2,000 scientists and engineers, about one-half of them from the United 



States."5 



He acknowledged funding support for the Academy's foreign programs 

 from eight private foundations as well as from the Department of 

 State and tJ.S. AID, although the "greatest fraction" of support 

 was from the National Science Foundation.^^^ 



One theme that runs through much of the literature of the past 20 

 years on the relationship of science to diplomacy is the need for a 

 closer relationship of the State science office to the National Academy 

 of Sciences, the National Research Council, and, more recently, the 

 National Academy of Engineering. Under the stewardship of Harrison 

 Browii, the NAS has significantly expanded the scope of work of its 

 Foreign Office. It has operational responsibilities for bilateral science 

 agreements, personnel exchanges and foreign visits of U.S. scientists, 

 the opening up of new international contacts, international meetings, 

 and, the support of the International Congress of Scientific Unions 

 and the many unions subordinate to ICSU. In recent years NAS 

 international programs have been largely divided between these long- 

 standing tasks and that of coordinating nongovernmental programs 

 of scientific foreign assistance to developing countries. The relation 

 of these activities to U.S. diplomatic goals is unmistakable. It is 

 harder to assess their scope and impact. 



It would be an impossible task to list and characterize all the 

 interrelations of the U.S. basic scientific community, public and 

 private, with their foreign counterparts. Annual inventories are 

 prepared for Congress by the National Science Foundation of those 

 international science activities that it helps to support. Several 

 studies in the present series. Science, Technology, and American Di- 

 2)lomacy, have given coverage to the subject. ^^'' The significance of basic 

 science as an instrument of diplomacy rests in part on its apolitical, 

 nonnational character. Phenomena are the same in every political 

 jurisdiction, as are also the canons of science. Probabilities are the 

 same. East and West. To some extent, of course, there is national 

 (as well as individual) competition to be first in discovery. But 

 communications \\dthin the scientific disciplines flow readily across 

 national boundaries and even through language barriers. The ultimate 

 value is new information about man's tmiverse, and preferably 

 simplifying information that adds to the broad understanding of 

 natural structures, functions, and relationships. 



255 Ihiri., pp. 4-5. 



"8 Section 3(b) of the National Science Foundation Act of 1950, as amended by Public Law 90-407, July 18, 

 1968, provided that: 



(b) The Foundation is authorized to initiate and support sneciHc scientific activities in connection 

 Willi niatl(<rs n>laling to international c()Oi)eration or national security by niakinp; contracts or other 

 anancenients f including grants, loans, and other forms of assistance) for the conduct of such scientific 

 activities. Such activities when initiatpd or supported pur,=uant to requests made by the Secretary of 

 State or the Secretary of Defense shall be financed solely from funds transferred to the Foundation 

 l).v the request ins Secretary as provided in section 15(g), and any suc.h activities shall be unclassified 

 and shall be identified by the Foundation as being undertaken at the request of the appropriate 

 Secretary. 

 !57 Sep especially: U.S. Congress, House, Conimittee on Foreign Affairs, U.S. Scientists Abroad: An Exami- 

 nalion of Major Programs for Nongovernmental Scientific Exchange, in the series Science, Technology, and 

 American Diplomacy, prepared by Genevieve J. Knezo, Analyst in Science and Technology, Science 

 Policy Division, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, April 1974. See vol. 

 II, pp. 865-1035. 



I 



